Mea Maxima Culpa
by Trinitas
Summary: The aftermath of decision: to some questions, there are no objective answers. Post-ep for 6:04: "The Tyrant."


_**Mea Maxima Culpa**_

He lies awake in bed, following his thoughts in circles that refuse to be slowed by the lull of Allison's breathing.

_You really think you can kill another human being with no consequences to yourself?_ Foreman's voice, accusing.

No legal consequences, maybe: he knows the argument he made is a good one; there's a small chance he won't end up on death row or spending the remainder of his life in federal prison. But he's remembering his own words, too: that only a psychopath can do the sort of thing he just did without guilt.

He laughs humorlessly into the dark: at least he's not a psychopath.

Dibala's life wasn't worth the massacre of two million people, and his own life—if that's the price he ends up paying for this—isn't, either. He'd rather live with one life directly on his conscience than read the newspapers and find out he contributed indirectly to a genocide.

Ironically, curing a killer isn't a crime. But since when does 'First, do no harm' mean enabling a bloodbath?

Who would blame Hitler's doctor for an intentional mistake?

He answers his own question: that doctor might have gotten praise from the history books, but he'd still have been judged a criminal in his own time.

But is killing sometimes right, even if it isn't legal?

It's one thing to help a suffering terminal patient who asks to die: he's seen that done before, even knows he could do it himself. That would be mercy, standing aside and allowing nature to take its course. Minimizing pain.

It's another thing altogether to kill a patient who could otherwise have lived.

_Lived to authorize the slaughter of two million people._ If he'd watched Dibala walk out with his small army of aides and advisors and known what he was going to do—could he have lived with that?

_Irrelevant question._ This time his inner voice sounds like House, the clinical tones he uses during a differential. _He's dead; you killed him. Try asking how you're going to live with that._

He should have refused when Foreman first asked for his help. Cuddy wouldn't have put him on the case if he'd just said something like, 'I can't be objective about this patient.' That simple.

And if House had gotten his way about treating for scleroderma—which he probably would have—Dibala would still be dead, and it would be an honest misdiagnosis.

Chase would have absolutely no responsibility.

If he told House about what he's done, what he's thinking, House would probably say something snarky about perfect hindsight, and tell him to either turn himself in for punishment or stop feeling guilty. There'd be some kind of advice, anyway.

Except he can't tell House, or Allison for that matter, because it's bad enough Foreman could end up in trouble: if he goes down for this, the least he can do is go down without dragging anyone after him.

Allison wouldn't have done this. She did the safe, legal thing, the right thing by the usual definition, and she probably even _was_ right. What had he been thinking?

He'd been thinking that he couldn't let two million people (as if the number of lives saved automatically means he was justified) die horribly when it was in his power to stop.

When had he become capable of making that kind of decision? Playing God?

Nausea roils in the pit of his stomach.

Sabotaging the test results had been premeditated. He'd known that the treatment authorized based on those test results would kill. He'd gone through the motions of trying to save a patient he'd set up to die. He'd watched him choke on his own blood.

Silently, he mouths the shapes of Latin words: _Confiteor Deo omnipotenti_. His breath catches at _mea maxima culpa_, before the words that ask forgiveness, because what the hell does he think he's doing, talking to a God that would let that kind of monster exist in the first place?

Is there a God at all?

Another irrelevant question: some things there is no forgiveness for.

**END.**

**Notes:** The Latin above is an excerpt from the _Confiteor_, a traditional Roman Catholic prayer. Translated, "I confess to God Omnipotent [or Almighty]." _Mea maxima culpa_ means, "My most grievous fault."


End file.
